![]() “At one time, you could make an argument that Big East was actually as good as the ACC,” McMurphy explains. He reported then and reiterates now that Genshaft was instrumental in keeping the Knights out of the Big East. McMurphy covered the Bulls and the Big East and his reporting on conference realignment gained him national recognition. ![]() McMurphy is now a national college football reporter for the Action Network, but spent much of his career as the USF beat writer for the Tampa Tribune. I tried to interview Genshaft a few times about the issue, but she always refused the requests and publicly refuted any notion that she attempted to block UCF’s entrance into the Big East. Meanwhile, then-USF president Judy Genshaft did her part to successfully block UCF from becoming a later addition to the Big East.Ĭentral Florida politicians over the years called out Genshaft for her backroom blackballing of UCF. In the years afterward, then-USF football coach Jim Leavitt dropped UCF from the schedule because he thought the Bulls were too big-time to play the Knights. In essence, USF was simply in the right place at the right time, but the Bulls were like the proverbial spoiled rich kid who was born on third base and then acted like he hit a triple. Back in 2005, when the Big East was expanding, the league chose USF over UCF mainly because of Tampa’s bigger TV market, USF’s superior basketball program and UCF’s football team was coming off back-to-back 3-9, 0-11 seasons. At the time, the Big East was considered one of the six power conferences in college football with a lucrative TV deal and automatic access into what were then called the six major “BCS” bowl games.
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